Research interests

Synthetic Biology
The field of synthetic biology aims to engineer tiny machines, fashioned from characterized DNA and protein components, that perform useful functions, like synthesizing useful metabolites, attacking tumors, and detecting compounds in the environment. My research lab explores the use of eukaryotic proteins as modular parts for building rationally designed devices in living cells.

Chromatin, An Untapped Resource for Parts
Nature provides an abundant source of functional proteins for designing new systems. To date, chromatin proteins are an untapped resource. A class of chromatin proteins, known as "effectors," have the remarkable ability to discriminate and bind to specific post-translational modifications of target proteins called histones. Can a synthetic protein device be engineered to read histone modifications? Can we use this type of device as a new tool to monitor changes in histone modifications in single living cells? Accomplishing these goals will allow scientists to probe histone modification at unprecedented resolution, thus furthering our understanding of the dynamics of histone modifications associated with cancer and normal cell development.

Publicity

Calculating Bacteria: Real Computer Bugs?
National Public Radio, Science Friday with Ira Flatow
A group of scientists reports in the Journal of Biological Engineering that they have created specially modified E. coli bacteria capable of performing one specific type of calculation — a puzzle known as the "pancake flipping problem." Karmella Haynes, one of the researchers, discusses the prospects for biologically based computing, and ways in which calculating bacteria might be useful.

Synthetic Biologist Karmella Haynes
WBUR Teacher's Domain
This video produced for Teachers' Domain profiles Karmella Haynes, a post-doctoral researcher working in the emerging field of synthetic biology. Karmella explains how she uses biotechnology to build living machines, or devices, from genes.